Amankwah for top athletics award

Ghana’s only qualifier for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, 800-metre runner Alex Amankwah, has been nominated for the inaugural Liquid Sports Ghana Athlete of the Year Award to be announced on Friday.

The award is aimed at promoting athletics in the country by throwing the spotlight on national athletes who excell both locally and internationally.

The list is dominated by athletes who helped Team Ghana win an impressive eight medals in athletics at the 2015 All African Games (AAG) in Congo-Brazzaville.

According to the organisers of the award, the nominees for the inaugural awards were determined after using the IAAF’s Scoring Tables of Athletics, performance at the 2015 All Africa Games and 2015 Commonwealth Youth Games (CYG), World and African rankings, and the national record of the athletes.

Amankwah, who capped a stellar season by becoming the first Ghanaian athlete to qualify for Rio 2016, having run a personal best of 1:45 seconds, will battle it out with John Ampomah, Atsu Nyamadi, Jordan Yamoah, among others, for the award.

Also making the short list are Emmanuel Dasor, Daniel Gyasi, George Effah, Solomon Afful, sprinter Tim Abeyie and long jumper Richard Seklorwu, who made history by becoming the first Ghanaian to win a gold medal at the Commonwealth Youth Games, after winning the boy’s long jump with a leap of 7.67 metres, made the top 10 list.